


The Savage Curtain:  Son of Surak

by Cheree_Cargill



Series: Glimpses of a Life [78]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Episode: s03e22 The Savage Curtain, Gen, Pre-Reform Vulcan, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 16:58:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17287946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheree_Cargill/pseuds/Cheree_Cargill
Summary: Spock is having nightmares about what happened on Excalbia, but an ancestor comes to comfort him.





	The Savage Curtain:  Son of Surak

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek characters are the property of Paramount Studios, Inc. The story contents are the creation and property of Cheree Cargill and is copyright (c) 2019 by Cheree Cargill. This story is Rated PG.

_Stardate:_ _5907.2. Personal Log. First Officer Spock recording._

I was having a nightmare. I was back on Excalbia, fighting alongside Captain Kirk, the alien that was representing itself as Abraham Lincoln, and Surak. But it really _was_ Surak, my ancestor and the father of our race. And I watched him stand silently and be killed. Over and over and over again. The dream looped and began again … and again. I tried my best to save him but to no avail. He simply stood passively and allowed it.

I writhed in my bed but could not awake. And then a voice penetrated my turmoil.

"Spock," it said quietly but with force. "You will heed me."

My eyes flew open and I stared in shock at the figure standing at the foot of my bed. It was Surak, just as I had seen him on the planet, dressed in his knitted woolen robe, his thumbs hooked inside his belt.

"Grandfather!" I gasped. He was not my literal grandfather, of course, but it was a term of respect for my distant progenitor.

"Why do you torment yourself, Grandson?" he asked. "You know that I died millennia ago. It was not I who appeared to you on Excalbia."

"No, logically I know this but you seemed so real to me," I replied, pushing myself higher in my bed.

"Because they were drawing your vision from your mind, just as they did with James and his Lincoln," Surak answered. "He believed that Lincoln was a gentle, wise man – and so he was – but he forgot that Lincoln was raised in a wild, brutish world, just as I was. He did not take into account that Lincoln was captain of a troop during the Blackhawk War and helped to bury the dead. As leader of his people during their Civil War, he visited the front and witnessed the horror of countless bodies there. Do you think that my life was any less than his? I too was a warrior and buried my own dead."

"But … but I have been taught that you refused to fight and led the way into peace," I stammered.

"Indeed," Surak answered skeptically and his figure shimmered and blurred. Then he was back, only dressed in the full armor of an ancient Vulcan warrior, heavy leather cuirass shielding his torso, wrist braces on both arms, and greaves on his shins. His head was covered with a full helmet of iron, a black _hox_ tail flowing from the crown. He held a long pike and a dagger's sheath hung from his belt.

"How do you think I arrived at my insistence on logic and peace?" he demanded of me. "I was a soldier, Spock. I killed and mutilated the enemy, which in actuality were no different from the clan I fought for. I watched friends and relatives die next to me in battle and afterwards buried their bloated bodies. I smelled the stench of death and heard the cries of the wounded."

He shifted his footing uncomfortably as he remembered. "It was when I was ordered to massacre a village of women and children that I had had my fill of war. There must be a better way, I decided. I spent my quiet times in deep thought and meditation, and I began to express my realizations to my fellows. Most of them laughed and scorned me, but some listened. Eventually I was called before my captain and ordered to stay silent or be punished. I could no longer do that and I refused to fight any more."

Surak stared steadfastly at me to make sure I was paying attention to his words. "I was executed before the entire company for cowardice. Did you know that? Do they teach how I died?"

I shook my head. "No, Grandfather, only that you were killed for your beliefs and that Vulcan turned to peace and logic afterwards."

"A long time afterwards," Surak responded and shimmered back to his original attire. "The men who had listened to me taught others and so the belief was handed down and spread. Vulcan was tired of war and it was such that our weapons had outgrown our wisdom. We nearly destroyed ourselves. It was only years and years later that the way of logic began to control our hate and restrained our emotions." He now peered at me benevolently. "Now, my son, rest and turn your dreams to peace. I am here in your _katra_ and will watch over you always."

I lay back down and closed my eyes and slept without troubled dreams for the rest of the night. When I awoke at my usual time the next morning, I instinctively looked toward the foot of my bed, but of course there was no one there. Had I dreamed Surak's visit or had it been a true vision from my _katra_? Whichever, I felt at peace now and readied myself for the day's business.

Before I left my cabin, however, I faced the _asenoi_ figure in my cabin and bowed my head in reverence. "Thank you, Grandfather," I murmured. "May peace be with you always."

I felt a light touch on the crown of my head and knew that Surak was with me.

 

THE END

 


End file.
